INKSTER Last spring, Inkster city councilman Hilliard Hampton Jr. raised a lot of local, and perhaps even federal, eyebrows by calling for the privatization of public housing.

"Public housing has become a way of life for some people, and that is not what it was supposed to be," Hampton told his fellow councilman, according to the Inkster Ledger-Star. "Once in public housing, these people are there for good. We have to look at alternatives, to get these people on their own feet, and not for them to depend on government subsidies. They can become homeowners in their own right." Hampton wants Inkster, where 15-20 percent of housing is public, to study the financial and legal barriers to carrying out a privatization plan

During her tenure as Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher privatized more than a million units of public housing in Britain by selling the units to the residents at a deep discount from market value.